The specific and tacit knowledge of shopfloor employees are vital sources for innovative work behaviour. Firms can use these skills to increase the efficiency of process innovation in the stages of idea generation and implementation of new processes. This study examines the necessary conditions...

This paper examines a common explanation why participants of panel surveys may report declining life satisfaction over time. In line with the argument of developing trust relationships between interviewers and interviewees, the analysis reveals positive effects in reported life satisfaction when...

This paper investigates the finding that reported life satisfaction scores are significantly higher in the German Socio-Economic Panel when a third person is present during the interview. Even after controlling a variety of relevant factors, third person presence makes up a significant...

Information on the number of interviewer contacts allows insights into how people's responses to questions on happiness are connected to the difficulty of reaching potential participants. Using the paradata of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), this paper continues such research by...

This paper argues that satisfaction data from surveys are biased by varying participant attitudes toward the interview itself. In this manner, interviewees in a German panel study report lower life satisfaction when there is evidence of transient influences like aversion. The empirical findings...

Using both household and linked employer-employee data for Germany, we assess the effects of non-union representation in the form of works councils on (1) individual sickness absence rates and (2) a subjective measure of personnel problems due to sickness absence as perceived by a firm's...

By conducting a natural field experiment, we test whether a managerial policy of allowing employees to self-determine their wages is as successful as recently suggested by laboratory evidence. We find that this policy indeed enhances performance. However, our data is clearly at odds with the...

According to economic analysis, common-law courts resolve individual legal disputes and create new, judge-made law. In this article, I study both functions in a civil-law context by analyzing data for nine German labor courts of appeal (Landesarbeitsgerichte) in the period 1980-1996. Output of...

Controlling the performance of employed physicians, university professors, or tenured judges is a difficult managerial problem, because these professionals perform complex tasks that are hard to measure and because many of the economic incentives common to private-sector employees do not apply...

Professional judges receive a fixed salary and are largely exempt from disciplinary sanctions. How can performance still be secured? Judges share a culture consisting of work-related norms and values, derive status from their standing within the professional community, and are susceptible to...